In this paper we revisit the question of how businesses respond to the minimum wage using evidence from a large minimum wage hike in Seattle. In 2014 the City of Seattle passed the Minimum Wage Ordinance, which raised the minimum wage to $15 over several years. We examine the minimum wage effect during the first … Continue reading →

Using administrative employment data from the state of Washington, we use short-duration longitudinal panels to study the impact of Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance on individuals employed in low-wage jobs immediately before a wage increase. We draw counterfactual observations using nearest-neighbor matching and derive effect estimates by comparing the “treated” cohort to a placebo cohort drawn … Continue reading →

This brief on Seattle’s minimum wage experience represents the first in a series that CWED will be issuing on the effects of the current wave of minimum wage policies–those that range from $12 to $15. Upcoming CWED reports will present similar studies of Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose and New York City, among others. The … Continue reading →

The city’s escalating minimum wage has meant a slight increase in pay among workers earning up to $19 per hour, but the hours worked in such jobs have shrunk, a study commissioned by the city found. It estimates there would be 5,000 more such jobs without the Seattle law. The UW team published its first … Continue reading →

Recall, we’re not insisting that a rise in the minimum wage will reduce the number of jobs in the economy, nor even in a sector of it. We’re saying that once we isolate out only the effect of the minimum wage rise then we will see that there are fewer jobs as a result of … Continue reading →

WB Games Seattle, which is composed of Monolith Productions, Snowblind Studios and Surreal Software have been hit with an unknown number of layoffs today. A source close to the studio confirmed to Joystiq that the Seattle team has been affected. Nothing concrete has been announced as of yet, though earlier layoffs saw around 60 people … Continue reading →

When people talk about the value of a college degree, they mean different things. A report last year by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce pegs the median value of a four-year bachelor’s degree at $2.3 million, which is the average earnings for a degree holder employed full-time from ages 25 to 64. … Continue reading →

Because they include calculations of the number of help-wanted listings relative to population, the rankings give an idea of how hard (or easy) it is to find a management job in each place. According to the January 2012 report, the top 10 metro areas for job-hunting managers are: 1) Washington, D.C. 2) Boston 3) San … Continue reading →